


Words Burn on the Page Like Fire

by Sky2Fall



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Billy Hargrove Needs Love, Billy Hargrove is good at English, Billy Hargrove loves poetry, Billy does not know what to do with his feelings, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Gay Billy Hargrove, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Poetry, Secret Admirer, Self-Hatred, Steve develops a small crush on Robin but don't worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky2Fall/pseuds/Sky2Fall
Summary: After his impromptu musical number at a party over the weekend, Steve receives an unexplained note in his locker. It turns out to be a poem from a mystery author, and Steve has NO idea what to do about that.This is a sequel to gideongrace's "Words fall from your lips like honey," so go read that first!I hope you like angsty poetry!
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Comments: 66
Kudos: 103





	1. The Sky Does Not Care

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Words fall from your lips like honey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637125) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



The first note appears in his locker the Monday after Amy's party.

It's just a scrap of notebook paper, clearly torn out of a ring binder and shoved hastily through the slots of his locker. Steve assumes it's a note from Nancy or someone at first, but when he unfolds it there's way more text than he was expecting. Several lines of handwritten text, in fact. Definitely not from Nancy, then. She knows how much handwriting like this frustrates Steve, how the letters all jumble together and make it even more impossible to read than normal books, so when she does have to write anything down for him it's short and sweet, written in big, bold letters. It doesn't even look like a normal note.

If anything, with all the organized lines, it looks like a poem.

Back when he was still King Steve and would get love poems all the time, he'd get Tommy H. to read them for him under the guise of bragging about it. He even managed to frame not reading them beforehand as not wanting to rob Tommy of getting to be the one to read it to him. Tommy loved that, though he pretended he didn't.

Asking Tommy to read this now is out of the question, and asking Nancy to read it would feel wrong, so Steve resigns himself to trying to read it himself. So, sitting at his desk in Mrs. Click's room before the bell rings, Steve tries to decipher the note, munching distractedly on a bagel.

After several long minutes of struggling, Steve is fairly certain that this isn't a love note. He's fairly certain that love poems don't normally talk about barbed wire or pain, which are the only words he was able to confidently decipher. Why did they have to write it in cursive?? It's so hard to read!!!

But then the bell rings and Mrs. Click gets up to start her lesson.

Halfway through class, Steve comes up with the only idea he can think of.

~*~

"Mrs. Click?" Steve asks as the rest of class is filing out the door. He had to muster up a lot of courage to approach his teacher to do something so simple. How pathetic is that? I mean, he can face down crazy monsters from an alternate dimension, but he gets nervous to approach the teacher of his worst subject? Lame.

"Ah, Mr. Harrington," she says with a politely clipped voice. He never was her favorite student. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, um, I uhh..." he hems nervously. "I've been trying to do some extra reading outside of class. You know, like you said. But I've been having some trouble with it. Is there someone who could help me out with it?"

"Oh," replies Mrs. Click, looking mollified. "Well that's very good of you! I'm glad to see you taking some seriousness in your education." Steve smiles bashfully in the way he knows is charming. He knew appealing to her with that would be a good idea. "What is it you're reading?"

"Oh, you know, just some poetry," Steve says. It's not exactly a lie, after all. "You know, something easy to get into."

"Well I suppose you're finding that poetry isn't that easy, after all?" she says with a mischievous glint.

"Yeah, I guess so..." says Steve, regretting this plan a little. 

"Well, as luck would have it, Ms. Buckley here happens to be one of the best students with poetry!" she says, gesturing behind Steve. When Steve turns, he sees a skinny, pretty girl frozen in the process of putting the last of her books in her backpack, staring at them like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Ms. Buckley!" says Mrs. Click. "Would you be so good as to come over here? I'd like to ask a favor of you."

"Suuure..." she says, looking wary as she picks up her backpack and approaches the desk.

"Steve, this is Robin Buckley. Robin, I'm sure you know Mr. Harrington," says Mrs. Click. "Well, he's been doing some extra reading outside of class and could use the help of a smart girl like yourself. Would you be willing to lend him a hand?"

Buckley looks over at Steve, clearly unimpressed.

"Sure," she eventually agrees. "I'll meet you at lunch in the library."

"Sure thing," agrees Steve, feeling a whole new set of nerves at having to show this note to this girl. Still, he doesn't know her, so she's definitely not popular enough to turn this against him, so it should be fine.

~*~

Later, at lunch, Steve makes his way to the back of the library to find Robin sitting on her own, obviously waiting for him.

"Alright," she says, wasting no time as Steve sits. "So what are we doing?"

"Okay, so this is gonna be kinda weird, but I need you to read this and tell me what it says," says Steve as he hands her the folded note.

"Dude," says Robin, looking profoundly unimpressed, "I'm not reading your dumbass love notes. You wanna brag, go brag to your buddies." She makes to stand up

"Wait wait wait! I know that this is, like, totally weird, but this isn't like a love note. At least I don't think it is."

"Yeah, sure..." she says

"I'm serious, it doesn't look like a love letter. I think it's, like, a poem? Like a sad one? I don't really, like, get all of it," Steve adds

Robin fixes Steve with a Look.

"Please, just, read it and tell me what it means, and I won't bother you again."

"Fine," she says, taking the note from his hands. Her eyes begin scanning down the page, and what starts off as a carefully calculated air of disinterest soon shifts into mild confusion, then surprise. She looks up at Steve, looks back at the note, reads it again.

"Someone left this in your locker?"

"Yeah," says Steve, "What is it?"

"Well, it starts off kinda like a love letter, but it feels more like a confession."

"Could you read it out loud?"

"Why?"

"Well, you know, the handwriting is kinda messy so it's a bit hard to read. And I get stuff better when I hear it."

"Okay, sure, whatever,” she says, rolling her eyes before holding the paper up to read from it.

"The Sky Does Not Care  
Your voice is a chorus that I cannot forget  
And your pain a sharp motif  
I wish I could soothe it away, make it mine  
But I have no right to that pain  
For it is yours  
And so I listen in the cold  
Rattling my barbed wire cage  
Violence is all I have left  
And my knuckles bleed even more  
And the sky does not care"

Silence fills the space between them for a few moments. Finally, Steve finds his voice.

"Someone left that in my locker?"

"Seems that way."

"What does it mean?"

"I mean..." Robin seems a bit at a loss, "it sounds like someone has a crush on you but also hates themself? Also they think you have a nice voice?”

"What?? Why??"

"Why what? Why do they have a crush on you, why do they hate themselves, or why do they think you have a nice voice?" she replies, recovering her original snark.

"All of them, I guess," says Steve, feeling bewildered. "Like, why would they leave a note like THAT in my locker? That's, like, some heavy fucking shit!! What girl in her right mind would think that's cute??"

"I don't know, maybe they're not trying to be cute," says Robin with a huff. "Are we done here? Can I go?"

"Yeah," says Steve, still feeling off balance. "Yeah, thanks for your help..."

Robin grabs her stuff and beelines out of the library, leaving Steve sitting on his own.

It sounds like the person who wrote this poem may have heard Steve sing over the weekend, which surprises Steve. Yeah, Steve is good at singing, and he's good at the guitar, but it's not like they're hard skills to pick up. It's just listening to the song and making the same sounds. Steve knows he's dumb and even he was able to do it no problem, so it can't be that special of a skill. Plus, his parents were never very impressed with him whenever he played a song. At best, his mother would smile indulgently and his father wouldn't make a quip about how music is a waste of time.

So Steve practiced in private, when his parents weren't home and no one was around. He'd listen to music and play the songs on the guitar he bought himself with his allowance, despite his father's disapproval, and he never mentioned it because he didn't want anyone to embarrass him over his lack of skill.

But then Amy's party happened. Steve went because he needed a distraction from the loneliness, and he got to the party and he just felt even more alone surrounded by all these people. He was about to leave when Melissa basically demanded that he play, and he hasn't been popular in forever, so who cares if he gets embarrassed? So he just played what came to mind. He had listened to "Hallelujah" a million times after he and Nancy broke up, he knew the song by heart, and it was the first thing that came pouring out of him. 

And to his surprise, everyone liked it. They genuinely liked the song. He hadn't felt that accepted by the general student populace in months. So he stuck around a while longer.

And now someone who heard him sing wrote him a really gut wrenching poem because they really liked it and Steve doesn't quite know what to do with that. He knows he should feel flattered, and he does, but the brutal sadness of the poem just sits weird in his gut.

Eventually he gets up and heads to grab some food himself, but not before folding up the poem and slipping it into a binder.


	2. Artful Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve receives another poem, and Robin is more interested in this little slice of melodrama than she'd like to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter. I was struggling with it a little until I realized that I needed more Robin and Steve banter.

Another note appears in his locker the Monday after Danny's party.

Steve wasn't even planning on going to this party, but after his impromptu song at Amy's party, folks around school are asking if he'd be going to this next party. It's nice to feel wanted again, so so nice, so Steve decides to go.

Of course he's begged into playing another song. The last time he was forced into playing, he just played what was on his mind. So this time he went with what was on his mind again: "Since I've Been Loving You" by Led Zeppelin. He had spent some time figuring out how to play it at home and he had gotten it pretty down pat. Everyone seemed to like it, but about halfway through one of the drunker girls complained that the song is too depressing. So with a grimace, Steve switched over to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham! since it's a fun song. Everyone seemed to appreciate it, which was nice. 

It's nice to be appreciated.

Still, he's not expecting another note. Correction, another poem, as he confirms when he unfolds yet another non-descript piece of paper bearing lines of cursive. Steve curses whoever invented the fucking idea of cursive. 'Yeah, let's make words even harder to read!' Fucking asshole. As if reading wasn't hard enough without making every word an illegible squiggle.

But still, he was expecting the first poem to just be a one time thing, so he's surprised to have found another one. This poem is just as hard to read as first one, of course, but it's nice to know someone is thinking of him. 

Still, he's more than a little nervous about what comes next.

~*~

"Hey, Buckley," Steve says to Robin after English ends. He felt like he was gonna vibrate out of his skin with the anticipation the entirety of the class, and he could barely wait for the majority of the class to file out the door to approach her.

"What do you want, Harrington?" she asks, fixing him with a withering look.

"I know I said I wouldn't bother you again but I, uh, got another poem."

"Another one?" she says, her face betraying her interest.

"Yeah, could you, uh, help me out with it?"

Robin fixes Steve with a long look, making him squirm more than a little awkwardly under her gaze. Man, this girl is INTENSE!

Finally, she deigns to have mercy on Steve.

"Fine, but you're buying me lunch today."

"Yeah, sure, that's fine," says Steve through the rush of relief.

"Beginning of lunch, same place," she says before brushing past Steve and walking off without even waiting for a confirmation.

Steve watches her leave, at a bit of a loss. Man, she's even more headstrong than Nancy, and Hell if Steve isn't a sucker for a girl who knows her mind. 

Mrs. Click's pulls Steve out of his thoughts.

"You're still reading poetry, Mr. Harrington?" she asks with a smile that she probably thinks is knowing.

"Yes ma'm," Steve says, smiling in the bashful way that he knows makes him look harmless. "Still having some trouble with it."

"Well lucky for you Ms. Buckley is a very gifted reader and analyst. She's very astute at identifying the underlying message of a poem." Mrs. Click nods to herself, as if pleased with what she had just said.

"Yes ma'am," says Steve, since it never hurts to say that. In that same vein of thought, he adds a "Thank you" before he heads to his next class, not sure how he's going to manage to wait until lunch.

~*~

"Alright, give it here," says Robin as soon as he sits down, not even bothering with pleasantries. Steve complies, just as eager to have her read it. She quickly begins to scan through it, and from her expression it's pretty impressive.

"Wow, that's... a lot," she eventually decides upon.

"Could you, uh..." Steve falters. "Could you read it out loud?"

"Again?" she sighs. "Dude, what are you, illiterate?"

"No!" Steve snaps, the joke hitting a little too close to home for his liking. "I just, y'know... have trouble with, like, messy writing..."

"It's pretty neat to me," says Robin sceptically.

"Yeah, well, cursive sucks," Steve snaps. "It's all jumbled up. Look," he sighs. "Just help me out. I'll buy you lunch tomorrow, too."

"All week," she counters back.

"Sure, fine, whatever, deal?"

"Deal," she nods before returning her attention to the page.

"Artful Hands  
You cast your pearls before swine  
And I heard the kernel of truth at the center of each one  
Who knew that there were such depths bellow those still waters?  
That they could even coax tears out of the bleeding stone of my heart  
You borrow the words of others and make them your own  
Sliding into them like a hand in a glove  
O, that my words were a glove upon that hand  
That they could be guided by such art"

There's a moment of silence while Steve processes what he just heard.

"Wow," says Steve eventually. "That was really pretty."

"Dude, Harrington, someone's got it BAD for you."

"You think so?" says Steve, still unsure what to make of this.

"Are you kidding?? Of COURSE!" says Robin emphatically. "They basically just said that you're really talented and that you speak to their soul and they wish you'd sing their poetry. Dude, they referenced Romeo and fucking Juliet in there! That was not an accident."

"You got all that out of that poem?"

"Of course, dude."

"But why? Why me? Why now?"

Buckley scoffs. 

"Search me," she says. "I don't see the appeal."

"Yeah yeah, very funny," Steve grouses. "But seriously, why does she write me all of these poems? Why not just tell me?"

"Maybe she's shy?"

"Why would she be shy? I'm a nice guy!"

"Are you?" Robin asks, and the look she gives Steve feels way too revealing.

"Well, I didn't used to be," Steve concedes, "but I haven't been like that like in a year!"

"Yeah, sure,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve asks sharply.

"Whatever, you owe me lunch for the next week, dingus," Robin says, getting up and heading toward the door. "C'mon, it's meatloaf day."

Steve rolls his eyes and dutifully follows.

~*~

"Dude you're getting crumbs everywhere."

"So?"

"So it's gross. Jeeze, you're such a slob"

"The hell I am," says Steve, "My hair is always on point."

"I'm surprised you don't have french fries in there with the way you eat," Robin snarks.

"What can I say? I'm a man of many talents."

Robin rolls her eyes and goes back to eating her meatloaf. The two of them sat at a relatively empty table in the corner. Normally Steve would eat on his own or with Nancy and Jonathan, so it's nice to have a new person to spend lunch break with, even if she criticizes how he eats his cornbread. She's actually pretty good company, if he's gonna be honest. The banter comes easily, even it's mostly at Steve's expense. That's okay, though. Steve has always been a sucker for punishment.

"Whoa," says Robin, noticing something behind Steve, "don't look now, but you're getting the stink eye."

True to his nature, Steve turns around and sees Billy Hargrove sitting with Carol and Tommy H., staring daggers at him. He looks away the moment Steve turns around, but it was clear that the look he was giving could've peeled paint off a wall.

"Oh," says Steve, "That's just Billy. He does that a lot. He's just like that."

"Dude," says Robin, looking at Steve like he's crazy. "That's Billy Hargrove! You know, the guy that beat your face in a few months ago."

"It wasn't that bad," Steve says defensively.

"Uh, yeah it was!" Robin counters back. "Your face looked like rotten mashed potatoes for like three weeks afterwards! The dude is a psychopath!"

Steve shrugs.

"Eh, a bit, but he's been staying off my case ever since," Steve says dismissively. "I think he feels kinda bad about it, but he doesn't wanna say it."

Robin looks at Steve like he's a complete moron now.

"Well if you end up dead in a ditch I'm not saying 'I told you so.'"

"Deal," Steve responds with a mischievous grin. Robin just rolls her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to avoid sucking my own dick with Robin and Steve's reactions to the poetry, but it's a fine line to walk. Also, I have to hold myself back from explaining all the imagery in the poems, because I don't want to insult y'all's intelligence by laying it all out like that but at the same time I REALLY want to explain all the imagery in these poems.


	3. The Secret Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets the most romantic poem yet, and Robin challenges him to show off his musical chops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an indeterminate amount of time between each of these parties. I dunno, like a month or so? Give or take?

Steve isn't surprised when he gets another poem in his locker after going to Amber's party over the weekend. He had been asked to play again, and at this point he was starting to look forward to it. He had even brought his guitar in his car, though he was a bit embarassed to admit it. He didn't want to become that guy who always brings his guitar to a party so he can impress people. Still, he was pleased when Andy said he should play something again, so he played "Shout" by Tears for Fears, cause it's another crowd pleaser and he wasn't going to have someone accuse him of being depressing again.

And now there's another poem sitting in his locker. Steve knew it'd be there. That's why he came to school early. Man, how early does this girl get to school?? Steve isn't willing to wait until lunch to get his answer, and since he doesn't have English first period today, he doesn't even know when he's gonna see Robin. Which is why he starts roaming the halls in search of her. Luckily, he finds her with a good 20 minutes to spare before the bell.

"Robin, I got another one." He and Robin have been on a first name basis ever since she make him laugh so hard he squirted milk out of his nose a week ago

"Seriously? Another one??" she doesn't even seem annoyed at this point, just intrigued.

"Yeah, c'mon, let's read it," says Steve, fidgeting in place in anticipation.

"What, right now?" she says, looking around.

"Yeah, come on, we got the time!" he says, bouncing on his feet.

Robin rolls her eyes, but her natural curiosity clearly wins out in the end because she concedes with an exasperated "Fine."

~*~

Steve has long ago learned which classrooms are empty on which days, so it's an easy matter to find a private space to read in. They're barely through the door before Robin is grabbing the poem from his hand and reading it. Her eyes widen as she reads.

"Holy shit, dude!" she says, as she finishes it, her eyebrows practically reaching her hairline.

"What? What does it say?" says Steve.

"Dude, listen to this," she says before holding the poem up to read.

"The Secret Song  
You transform what you touch  
You take a song of stone and pour your quiet threnody into the cracks  
And it sings  
A towering melody becomes a one voice choir  
And it's soft and it's silent and only those  
With the same cracks in their hearts can hear  
The secret song  
And I listen and yearn to be transformed  
Beneath clever hands and gentle tongue"

"Whoa," Steve says.

"Yeah," agrees Robin, "holy shit. Dude, this person is HORNY for you."

"Dude, don't be gross..." says Steve half-heartedly, still processing what he heard. Hoping to distract from the awkwardness, he asks the first question he can think of. "What does 'threnody' mean?"

"I'm not sure," Robin replies, "but based on context clues I'm guessing it means a sad song."

"So she's saying I sound sad?"

"No, dingus," says Robin, rolling her eyes. "She's saying that she feels your pain. I mean, everyone in school knows about how you're still broken up about Wheeler. Maybe she got her heart broken, too."

"I'm not still broken up over Nancy," Steve says immediately. "Besides," he continues, "that doesn't really narrow it down."

"Yeah, it sure doesn't," Robin agrees.

"Well it's definitely someone who goes to parties regularly."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I always get these notes the Monday after a party where someone convinces me to play a song."

"Yeah, I was meaning to ask about that. This girl won't stop sucking your dick over your singing skills," says Robin with a wicked smirk. "You really that good?"

"I mean, I guess?" says Steve, feeling off balance in the face of Robin's... everything. 

"Prove it."

~*~

A few short minutes and they're standing in the band classroom, a room Steve never thought he'd set foot in. He feels awkward and out of place.

"C'mon, Robin, why do I gotta do this?"

"Cause I won't read these poems for you anymore if you don't. Now man up."

"Jerk," Steve mutters, though there's no heat behind it.

"Dumbass," she responds immediately before turning her attention to a man puttering around a stand of drums. "Morning, Mr. Dodson."

"Oh, hello Robin," he says distractedly.

"Hey, did you bring your guitar today?" she says with a wicked smirk at Steve, who shifts awkwardly.

"You know I never go anywhere without it," he says with a a cheerful grin. "Why do you ask?"

"My buddy Steve here wants to play a song for us before class," she says, wrapping an overly companionable arm around Steve's shoulders.

"Oh certainly!" Mr. Dodson says with a big grin. "It's just behind my desk!"

Robin swoops over and grabs the guitar, presenting it to Steve with a smirk. Steve glares at Robin, but he still sits down and strums the guitar strings a bit. It feels familiar, relaxing. Something that he always finds quiet solace in. He looks up at Robin one more time.

"The floor is yours," she says with an expansive gesture. Steve rolls his eyes.

He plays the first thing that comes to his mind, and he's been a little obsessed with the Breakfast Club recently. He decides to start off soft, though. A gentle hello rather than the emphatic greeting that the original version begins with.

"Hey, hey, hey..." he croons gently, "Oooooh woh..."

This is the best part of playing a song. Just sinking into the song, letting it completely envelop him. It feels like he can finally tell the truth when he's like this.

"Won't you come see about me?  
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby  
Tell me your troubles and doubts  
Giving me everything inside and out and"

He knows this song so well. He learned every word of it when he first heard it. After all, it's about feeling alone and wanting to be loved and remembered fondly. How could he not?

"Love's strange so real in the dark  
Think of the tender things that we were working on  
Slow change may pull us apart  
When the light gets into your heart, baby"

And that line always hits him so hard. How people can drift apart without meaning to. He's drifted away from so many people. His parents, Tommy, Nancy. They've all moved on from him in the end. That's what makes the joyful demand that he be remembered in the next verse feel all the more cathartic to belt out.

"Don't you, forget about me  
Don't, don't, don't, don't  
Don't you, forget about me"

Steve wants so badly to be loved. He's come to realize this recently. It's probably why he wants to make people smile so much. That's why the poems are throwing him for such a loop. It's like the universe is taunting him, making someone love him but not giving him the ability to love them back. Steve knows what it feels like to feel unloved. He's felt it for a while. So maybe this next verse is a bit of a wish on his part, sent out to whoever has been leaving him those poems.

"As you walk on by  
Will you call my name?  
As you walk on by  
Will you call my name?  
When you walk away"

This next part of the song always felt like whispering a secret to someone, like exposing something soft and delicate to someone you love. It's something that Steve always yearns for, to be able to open up to someone. He sings it softly, feeling like he's entrusting something precious to some nameless person. The universe maybe? He doesn't know, he's never been good at that stuff.

"Or will you walk away?  
Will you walk on by?  
Come on, call my name  
Will you call my name?"

Finally, he gets to his favorite part of the song. The overflowing joy of it always completely enwraps him. That's why he's surprised to hear at least a dozen other voices join in with him

"I say la! Lala la la! Lala la la! Lala la lala la lala la la!"

He starts paying attention to his surroundings again to realize that there's a small crowd around him. It looks like the whole band class wound up coming into the room while he was singing, and they all decided to join in. They're all grinning like they realize that what they're doing is kinda silly, but they're still singing, so Steve doesn't stop. Even Robin is smiling and singing along, and that's something that makes Steve's heart flutter.

"La! Lala la la! Lala la la! Lala la lala la lala la la!" Steve pours his heart and soul into the last few chords of the song, feeling so much joy at making so many people smile so genuinely that the only thing he can do is sing it.

Finally, he winds the song down and all the other band kids start clapping. Steve's face feels like one big grin.

"Well done!" says Mr Dodson, approaching Steve as he puts the guitar down. "That was very impressive! Steve Harrington, right?"

"Yes sir," says Steve, shaking the man's hand.

"It's good to properly meet you, Steve," he says. "Tell me, where have you been hiding this talent all this time?"

Before Steve can try to figure out an answer to that question, the bell rings, signaling that Steve is gonna be late to first period again.

"Not bad at all, dork," says Robin, patting Steve on the back.

"See you at lunch?" he asks her as he grabs his backpack.

"Yeah, sure," she teases with a grin.

Steve grins back as he heads out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel kinda weird including song lyrics in stories like this, cause it almost feels like stealing someone else's work? But at the same time I love writing about how someone personally relates to the lyrics of a song, and the best way to do that is by copy-pasting the lyrics. Hopefully you guys enjoy this look into how Steve feels about singing!


	4. The Serpent Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's bad week starts looking a little better when he gets an unexpected poem on Friday. However, the poem is heavier than he was expecting, and Steve decides that he doesn't like the implications behind that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a lot of fun to work on!

This week has been going badly for Steve, and there's not even a party to look forward to anywhere in the near future.

He failed a test, he forgot an important paper until the last second, and he's been off his game in basketball. Everyone on the team has been giving him shit about it. Well, everyone except Billy, who has been consistently ignoring him ever since November. Steve honestly kinda misses the attention. Yeah, Hargrove is a dick, but their rivalry used to be exhilarating. Now it's like he doesn't even want to look at Steve.

And to top it all off, Friday is already ruined before Steve even leaves the house by his father. Of course the asshole would choose such a shitty week to be home to criticize Steve. He just sits there at the breakfast table, telling Steve how disappointing his grades are and how his business partner's sons are doing so much better. Steve just sits there and takes it.

Needless to say, when he gets to school to find a new poem in his locker, he's a little surprised. After all, this is the first time he's received a note on a day other than Monday. But after the week he's been having, this is the best surprise he could have asked for.

He gets to Mrs. Click's class as fast as possible.

~*~

"Hey Robin," Steve saunters up to Robin's desk while she's getting her binder out of her backpack.

"What do you want, dingus?" she asks with a smile. By way of an answer, Steve just holds up the poem.

"Another one??" she says excitedly, reaching up to try to grab the poem, but Steve dances out of the way. Robin gives him a look.

"The usual spot?" Steve asks, waggling his eyebrows. Robin rolls her eyes and glances to her right. Steve looks in the same direction in time to see Tammy Thompson giving Robin the stinkeye for a split second.

"Yeah sure, whatever," Robin says tersely.

"See you there," Steve says before heading back to his desk. He notices Tammy give him what she clearly thinks is a subtle glance on the way over. He chuckles a bit to himself. Tammy is gonna have to get in line.

~*~

"Alright dingus, where is it? Give it here." Robin never wastes any time.

"Hey hey hey," says Steve, leaning back in his usual chair at the back of the library. "Why you gotta be so mean to poor old Stevie?" He affects a pout.

"Cause poor old Stevie is a moron," she says with a cold look.

"Well maybe poor old Stevie is just gonna take his juicy poetry elsewhere," Steve singsongs, enjoying the banter.

"Yeah?" counters Robin. "And who's gonna wead the poetwy fow poow owd Stevie-weevie then?"

"Ew," says Steve, digging in his backpack for the poem. "Never do a baby voice at me again."

"Deal," says Robin, reaching for the paper.

"Ah ah ah!" adds Steve, pulling the paper back. "You gotta agree to do lunch with me again."

Robin looks at Steve.

Steve smiles back at Robin.

"You're buying," she finally says, her facade cracking a little as she grins.

"Deal," Steve responds, allowing Robin to grab the paper from his hand. She unfolds it and starts to read.

Her grin falls about halfway through.

"Whoa, okay..." she says. "That's heavy."

"What, what is it?"

"Here, just listen," she says, not even needing to be prompted to read it for Steve at this point. Steve really can't say how grateful he is for that.

"The Serpent Sword  
Love is a light in the dark  
A torch that guides you through sorrow  
But love is earned.  
Want, however, is a deadly sword with a thirst for blood  
A serpent blade that must be sated  
Where once its vampiric lust could be fed with petty cruelties  
Now it is left only to bite the hand that wields it  
And so fill my veins with venom."

"That's...." says Steve, his good mood completely turned on its head. "That's a lot..."

"Yeah, no kidding," agrees Robin.

"What does it mean?"

"Well," says Robin, rereading the poem. "It sounds like whoever has this crush on you used to be real mean to you, but now they can't or won't for whatever reason.”

Steve turns that over in his head, but no matter which way he angles the thought it just doesn't sit right.

"Okay,” he says, pushing out of his chair to pace, feeling too worked up to stay sitting. “I don't like this.”

"Don't like what?" scoffs Robin. "Getting love poems from a secret admirer?"

"No, not that," Steve grouses. "These don't feel like love poems. They feel like cries for help! I don't like that this girl feels like she has to just be lonely. I don't like that. It's shitty. I'm gonna figure out who's sending these."

Robin gives him a funny look.

"Maybe she doesn't want you to find her," she says eventually.

"Bullshit," says Steve vehemently. "She's sending me these notes. Some part of her wants me to find her. That's obvious."

Robin gives him another funny look. Finally, she sighs and gathers her stuff up.

"Alright, we're figuring this out. Let's go."

“What, really?” says Steve, mentally scrambling to keep up.

“Of course, dingus. You think you're gonna be able to figure this out yourself?” she says as she stands up. "Come on, lets go do some sleuthing. Plus," she adds over her shoulder as she turns away, "you owe me lunch."

~*~

"So what about Mary?" Robin says pointing to the table where a girl with curly black hair is sitting. Steve gives her a moment's consideration.

"Nah," he says through a mouthful of turkey sandwich. "She wasn't at Amber's party. I think she had a trip with her family that weekend?"

"So? The girl doesn't need to have been at every party."

"I just don't think it's her," Steve insists. "I feel like whoever it was has to have been there for all the songs I sang."

"What about Bianca?" 

"You mean Bianca Hamilton?" Steve looks around the cafeteria but doesn't see her.

"Yeah, she was talking about your songs during band practice last couple weeks. I think she went to the parties you sang at."

"Maybe..." Steve concedes. After some thought, he continues. "Wait, wasn't she there when I sang in the band room last week?"

"Yeah, I think so?"

"Well then she definitely isn't the one,” he says triumphantly, “cause I didn't get a poem after singing that time."

"Hmm," Robin says, munching on a french fry. "Good point." Steve grins, pleased with this small victory.

They share a thoughtful silence before Robin speaks again.

"What about Tammy Thompson?" she asks carefully.

"Like, Tammy Thompson from English class?" Steve says. "Nah, I don't think so. I don't see her being that good at poetry. She's kind of a dud."

"No she isn't," Robin says immediately.

"Yeah," Steve says with a laugh, "she is. She totally thinks that she's gonna be, like, a singer or something."

"So?"

"So have you heard her sing?" asks Steve with a mean little smirk. "She's terrible!"

"She's not that bad," says Robin sullenly.

"What are you, the president of her fan club?"

"No, I just don't think it's fair of you to say stuff like that about her," she says, not meeting Steve's eye. Steve is about to respond with another tease when a familiar voice interrupts him.

"Hey Steve," says Nancy.

Nancy is sitting herself down in the seat beside Steve. She has that alert look in her eyes that she gets when she's on the scent of something interesting, which usually spells trouble for Steve. Still, it's nice to see her. Steve hasn't been spending a lot of time with her lately, choosing to hang out with Robin instead.

"Hey Nancy! What's up?" Steve asks.

"Just wanted to see how you've been," she says before turning to Robin. "And who's this?"

"Oh Nancy, this is Robin!" Steve says politely, ignoring Robin's bored gaze. "Robin, Nancy."

"Good to meet you," says Nancy, nodding at Robin.

"Yeah," responds Robin.

A somewhat awkward silence follows.

"So," Nancy says, pressing through the awkwardness. "How have you been?"

“I've been good,” says Steve carefully. “This week has kinda sucked, but when do they not?”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” says Nancy in the way she does when that wasn't the information that she wasn't looking for. Not unkind or dismissive, but Steve can practically hear the unanswered question fidgeting under her words. Nancy turns her attention to Robin. “So what do you do?” she asks.

Oh, Steve sees where this is going. He internally grimaces.

“I'm in band,” Robin answers simply. Nancy stays silent a few moments longer, hoping that will persuade Robin to fill the silence.

It doesn't.

Finally, Nancy decides to switch gears.

“So how do you two know each other?” she asks.

"Oh, uh," Steve says, not sure how to answer the question.

"I'm helping tutor Steve with some English homework," Robin responds without missing a beat.

"Yeah," agrees Steve, grateful for the quick cover story. He's not really sure he wants Nancy knowing about these poems. She'd want to see them, and he doesn't want to just go showing these poems to anyone.

“Oh that's great!” Nancy says with a genuine smile. In spite of himself, Steve smiles. Yeah, Nancy may be nosy, but she does still care about Steve, and that makes him feel a little better about the fact that she's trying to butt into his love life. “English always gives Steve some trouble. I'm glad he has someone helping him out with it! I was starting to get a little worried about him.”

Robin glances at Steve before smiling saccharine sweet at Nancy.

“Well don't you worry, I'm taking very good care of Steve,” she says. Steve almost chokes on his sandwich at the audacity of Robin's cheek. 

Nancy, looks at Steve awkwardly before standing up. 

“Well, it was good seeing you, Steve,” she says with a somewhat forced smile. “Good to meet you, Robin.”

“Come by anytime,” says Robin as Nancy hurries away. 

Steve meets Robin's eyes.

After a few seconds, the two descend into laughter.

~*~

“So Nancy assumes that we're dating,” Steve says as they walk out of the cafeteria.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” agrees Robin with a laugh. “She probably thinks that I'm just using tutoring you as a way to get close to you.”

“Well, they say the way to a man's heart is through his English grades.”

Robin gives him a snarky look.

“That joke sucks,” she teases.

“Hey, it got a smile out of you.”

“Against my better judgment,” concedes Robin, still smiling. After a few moments, she adds, “In all seriousness, though, if you actually need a for real tutor in English I can help you out.”

“Wait, really?” says Steve, grinning hugely. 

“Yeah,” says Robin with a little smile. “A dumbass like you needs all the help he can get.”

“That's so mean of you!” gasps Steve. “I thought you loved me!”

“Ha!” Robin laughs again, causing Steve's stomach to flip a little again. He loves making her laugh. “Yeah, no thanks, I think I could do better.”

“Ouch!!” Steve says, affecting an over-exaggerated stumble and clutching his chest. “Oh man, why would you hurt me like this?”

“Get over it, dingus. Besides, you're not my type.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot, you only have eyes for Tammy Thompson,” Steve teases.

At that, Robin stiffens up. Steve panics for a moment. That wasn't what he was going for. He scrambles for the first distraction he can think of.

"Well, you tutoring me definitely makes Nancy feel better," Steve says hurriedly. "She's always worried about me. She thinks that our break up might have messed me up."

"Well, it definitely didn't make you smarter," Robin quips, a little meaner than is strictly necessary. Which, okay, that's fair.

"Yeah..." Steve says, not sure of what else to say. An awkward silence falls between them as Steve walks with Robin towards her locker. When she gets to it, she opens it before turning back to Steve.

"So what are you gonna say when you figure out who it is?"

"Huh?" says Steve, caught off guard.

"When you figure out who's sending you these poems," she clarifies as she grabs her bookbag. "What are you gonna say to them? You gonna sweep them off their feet? Be their knight in shining armor?"

That stumps Steve. He's not really sure, honestly.

"I dunno," he shrugs lamely. "I guess just that they don't have to be sad. I mean..." he fidgets. "I guess I just want them to know that I know how they feel and that, you know, it's okay to be lonely, but they don't have to be alone while doing it..."

Robin scrutinizes him for a few more moments.

"Alright," she says eventually, apparently satisfied with the answer. Steve feels like he just passed a test, but he has no idea about what. Before she turns to leave though, he stops her.

"Hey, Robin," he says, not sure how to apologize.

“What?”

Steve shifts uncertainly before finally settling on humor.

"For what it's worth, if you can do better than me, then you can definitely do better than Tammy Thompson.”

“Shut up and get to class, dingus,” Robin says, but Steve can see her trying to hide a smile at that. Score one for Steve Harrington, master of comedy.


	5. Alexander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets another poem, but he is not prepared to handle its implications.

Spring Break was pretty fun. It started off with another party. So it makes sense that there's another poem in his locker when he gets back to school the next week.

The party itself was a little disappointing. A lot of the school was out of town on vacation, so there weren't a lot of attendees. Steve spent a lot of time people watching, trying to figure out which girl there might be the one sending him poems, but pickings were pretty slim and he eventually got bored with it and headed out back to watch Billy and Tommy and the other guys getting up to their antics.

Because of course Billy Hargrove was there. Dude goes to every single party, constantly reasserting himself as the coolest guy in town. And of course he broke another keg stand record. Billy approaches a keg stand like he approaches everything in life: like he has something to prove. He howled and hollered after winning, bare-chested and roaring about how he's the best thing in this hick town, and everyone eats it up.

Steve remembered what it was like to be where Billy stood. Surrounded by cheers and sycophants. He remembers how lonely it was to be around people who don't really care about you. How stressful it was to constantly maintain that image. It was such a relief when he stopped being cool. Sure, he was still lonely, but he no longer felt like he had to put on a show.

He wonders if Billy feels lonely like that, too.

The bad memories put Steve in a sad mood, so he ducked out before he could be convinced to play a song and headed home. 

The rest of the break was spent playing babysitter to Dustin and the other nerds, and that was nice. Like, really nice. They all seem to think he's pretty cool no matter what he does. He doesn't have to put on a front with them. He can just be himself. El was even allowed to leave the cabin a little, so the kids were in especially good spirits, culminating in a big D&D session that they played at Steve's house, since he had the place to himself and always supplies them with ample pizza.

By the time he got to school, he had almost forgotten the party that he had left early, so he wasn't expecting another poem. Still, it makes sense.

~*~

"Hey Robin, how was your spring break?" he asks as he finds her headed to English as well.

"Ugh, lame," she huffs. "Colorado was boring and hiking sucks. Did you get the paper finished?"

"Yep!" Steve says proudly. Robin had been true to her word and started helping tutor Steve in English, which included helping him read through papers. Steve really couldn't express how grateful he was to her for taking on the role of reading stuff out loud for him without having to be asked. He still had trouble getting stuff written down, but Dustin was surprisingly willing to help him write stuff down in exchange for free meals.

"I also got another one of these," he says, pulling out the folded poem.

"Wow, they really are persistent, aren't they?" said Robin, eyeing the paper. She is clearly still very interested in knowing its contents, but her enthusiasm looks like it's been tamped down a little after the last one. Steve can relate. "You sure you wanna read that?"

"Yeah," says Steve with conviction. "They're sending me these poems. I owe it to them to at least hear them out.

"Alright," she responds. "Come on, let's get this read now."

~*~

Robin is quiet for a while after she scans through the poem in the silence of the empty classroom. She had started off looking very interested in the poem. Now she almost looks nervous to Steve.

"What's up?" he finally asks when his curiosity gets to be too much. "Is it another heavy one?"

"No, not exactly," she says. "It's a sad one for sure, but it's not the same kind of heavy as that last one. It's just... unusual."

"Well, lay it on me," Steve encourages, getting a little impatient.

"Alright, fine," she says with trepidation.

"Alexander  
Once I sought to meet Ozymadias  
Seeking to steal from him his throne  
But when I strode up to his palace  
Arrayed in rage and glory  
A furious Alexander  
I found only barren sand  
And far in the distance, a gentle smile in a world I cannot conquer  
Embraced in arms that I cannot hope to weild  
Now I stand alone, surrounded by the hissing laughter of snakes  
Straining to hear a song on the wind over my weeping"

Steve processes for a moment.

"I didn't get any of that," he finally admits.

"Really? I wouldn't have guessed." says Robin, though it lacks her usual wry wit.

"Shut up," Steve grouses. "Who's Ozymandias?"

"It's a poem about a king. We literally read it last semester, dingus."

"Okay," he says, ignoring the jab. "Well who's Alexander?"

"I'm pretty sure they're referencing Alexander the Great?"

"Well, why is she referencing a poem about a king and Alexander the Great?"

"Well, Ozymandias is about finding the remains of a giant statue. It's supposed to represent how even the most powerful people can fall and be forgotten."

"That doesn't make any sense," says Steve. "What about Alexander the Great? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, there's a famous quote about him weeping because there were no more worlds left to conquer, but there's another version of that quote that says he wept because there worlds that he would never get to conquer. I think it's different translations or something."

"Okay, well what does this have to do with me?"

"Well maybe whoever wrote this poem doesn't think they have a shot with you," Robin says carefully.

"Why, cause I'm a douchebag?"

"No, cause I, uh...” Robin pauses hesitantly. “I don't think that whoever wrote this is a girl,” she finally says with a cringe.

Steve is quiet.

“What?” he finally manages.

“I said,” says Robin with trepidation, “I don't think a girl wrote this.”

"That's not funny, Robin," he snaps.

"Dude, I'm not being funny," she snaps back. "I just get the feeling that a girl didn't write this poem."

"So what, you think a guy wrote this?"

"Well, it makes sense," she says mulishly. "The writer calls themself a 'furious Alexander.' Alexander the Great is an iconic male figure, dude! A girl isn't going to call themself Alexander."

Steve stays silent.

"Plus, Alexander the Great is pretty well known for having a male lover as well as his wife, so it makes sense that a guy who-" she hesitates here. "that a guy who's into guys would compare themselves to him."

"So what?" Steve snaps. "You think I'm just attracting queers?"

Robin glares at Steve and her face closes off.

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" she asks coldly.

"Well what the fuck are you trying to get at?" Steve counters back. "You think I'm a queer, too?"

"Dude, fuck you," she says.

"Fuck you, too," Steve responds.

They both glare at each other for a few moments. Finally, Robin turns and grabs her stuff.

She leaves without saying anything.

Steve stares at the door for a while, his mind racing.

Eventually, he moves to leave. But then he remembers the poem, discarded on the table Robin had been sitting on.

He contemplates leaving it there. Just abandoning it and never thinking about it again.

But that doesn't feel right. Someone trusted something to him when they left these poems in his locker. Like what he does when he sings. They put a little piece of their soul in the words. That would suck to just leave behind.

So he grabs the poem and heads off to class.

~*~

Steve sits alone at lunch for the first time in a while.

For the last few months, he's always sat with Robin during lunch, and he very keenly feels the absence of her quick wit and clever commentary.

He hadn't realized how much he'd come to hate the idea of sitting alone again. Still, he's not ready to sit with Nancy and Jonathan again. He has a lot on his mind right now.

He knew he was an asshole to Robin, but I mean can you blame him? She was basically saying he was gay! Okay, well, maybe not outright saying it, but if people found out he's been saving love letters from a queer then it'll all amount to the same thing.

So yeah, he got a bit worked up, but if people starting thinking he was gay, his life would be over. If word got back to his dad, his life would REALLY be over!

But why did Robin get so worked up about it? She seemed like she was taking what he was saying really personally. Maybe she has like a gay uncle or something?

And then there's a thought that keeps working its way into Steve's head, and it occupies a lot of space.

Robin said that Alexander the Great was into women and men. Is that a thing that can happen? Steve had always assumed that it was supposed to be one or the other. You either chose to like girls or you chose to like guys. Like, you just made your decision and then the feelings you have for the other option just went away.

That puts a lot of things into question that Steve wasn't prepared for.

Without knowing why, Steve glances over at where he Billy is sitting, meeting Billy's eyes for a split second before Billy looks away. 

Steve remembers what it was like to get in Billy's face. What it was like to feel him pressed up against him during basketball practice. The way he smelled.

Steve gets up, abandoning his half eaten lunch, and stalks outside, desperate for a cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me a lot of trouble! I've never written conflict, so I wasn't really sure how to approach it. I think it came out pretty well in the end, though!
> 
> And don't worry, this conflict gets resolved. I have it all planned out, so it'll be fine :)


	6. I'm Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies come in lots of different forms. Steve and Robin learn that acceptance is the best apology of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me a while to get out! It contains a lot of stuff that I haven't written before, so I struggled with quite a bit of it, but over all I'm very proud with how it came out!

Steve can feel the unread poem burning a hole in his pocket.

He's been way off his game in basketball again. This whole week has been even worse than a month ago. He's constantly tripping, getting pushed over, even fumbling the ball, which he never does. He can barely even dribble! So yeah, the entire team has been giving him shit, all of them except Billy, who's been ignoring Steve even more than usual.

Steve is at once grateful and disappointed by that.

But he's been missing Robin's company since last Monday. She's not like anyone else that he knows. She's just a lot of fun to be around, but he screwed things up with her and he doesn't know how to fix it.

And now he found another poem in his locker, and there's no one left to read it for him.

"What's bothering you, Steve?" Nancy asks him, using the voice she uses when she already knows what's happening. Steve looks over at her concerned eyes. He's been eating lunch with her and Jonathan for the last few days after the loneliness got too much. She definitely thinks she knows what's bothering Steve. She has that look. Except this time she really doesn't know what's happening, and her presumptuousness annoys Steve.

"I'm fine," he says dismissively.

"No, you're not," she says knowingly. "You're not a very good liar, Steve, I know when something's on your mind."

Steve gives a non-commital grunt. Nancy can be such a know it all sometimes.

"You and Robin broke up, didn't you?" she says sympathetically.

Steve chuckles darkly.

"Yeah, no, we weren't dating in the first place

"Oh," she says, and Steve savors the look of genuine surprise on her face. "I assumed that-"

"Yeah," Steve interrupts, "you did."

Nancy looks hurt, and that makes Steve feel like an asshole.

"Sorry," he says with an apologetic wince. "That was mean. I'm just..." he sighs. "I said some dumb stuff to Robin last week and now we're not talking and I miss hanging out with her."

"Oh," says Nancy, processing.

"Yeah..." Steve says darkly, poking at his mashed potatoes distractedly. Silence descends upon the group for a minute. Jonathan looks carefully at Steve and Nancy, but remains silent. Steve is grateful for that. It's more kindness than he deserves from Jonathan.

"Well," Nancy eventually says, "what did you say?"

"I dunno..." says Steve, not too eager to share the details. Partially because he's embarrassed, but mostly because he doesn't want Nancy to know about the poems. The poems feel too personal. They feel like something that he should only share with Robin. "I said 'fuck you,'" he finishes lamely.

Nancy raises an eyebrow.

"That's it?"

"I don't really know what I said exactly," said Steve, feeling frustrated again. "But she hasn't even looked at me in like a week and a half."

"Well," said Nancy in her infuriatingly reasonable voice. "You know that you said something to upset her, right?"

"Yeah," concedes Steve.

"So you should go apologize, even if you don't exactly what you did. Ask her what you did wrong. Maybe she'll tell you. And even if she doesn't, at least she'll know that you care enough to ask.”

“Yeah, yeah that's a good idea,” says Steve. “Thanks Nance.”

“Anytime,” she says with a smile.

Yeah, Nancy may not know everything, but damn if she doesn't know a lot.

~*~

After school, Steve is able to find Robin at her locker.

“Hey Robin,” he says cautiously, approaching slowly.

"What do you want?" she says without looking at him. No teasing. No insults. Not 'what do you want, dingus?' Just 'what do you want?' That hurt more than he realized it would. Well, that's why he's here, isn't it?

“Look,” he starts, realizing he really doesn't know what to say, so deciding he might as well just say it and let the chips fall where they may. “I just wanted to say that I'm sorry.”

Robin finally looks at him, giving him a calculating look.

“For what?” she finally asks.

“Honestly? I'm not sure,” he admits. “I'm sorry for upsetting you, obviously. Saying 'fuck you,' that was shitty of me, so that. I don't know what I said that upset you, but I'm sorry that I did upset you.”

Robin doesn't say anything. She just continues to look at him in that way that he knows means she's thinking.

“Also...” Steve continues. “I thought about it and, yeah, you're probably, like, right about it.”

“About what?”

“About the writer, y'know....” he leans in closer, “being a guy,” Steven murmurs. He had given it some thought over the last week, and while he had come to be comfortable with the fact that Robin is probably right about who's been writing these poems, he's still a little nervous about admitting it out loud. It feels like he's admitting too much.

That at least causes a lot of the tension in Robin's stance to ease away. Recognizing an opening, Steve plows on.

"And on that note, I brought a peace offering," he says, pulling the poem out of his back pocket.

"Really?" Robin says, arching an eyebrow. She looks like she wants to be annoyed, but she's not very good at hiding her interest. Steve can tell she's curious.

"And I'll buy you lunch tomorrow," he adds. Robin contemplates.

“That's the best you've got?” Steve feels a surge of relief. If Robin is playing along, that means he has a chance.

“Okay, fine, I'll buy you lunch for the rest of the school year,” he says, unable to keep himself from grinning a little.

“All two weeks of it, huh?” Robin quips back. She's still not smiling, but she's teasing Steve, and that's a good sign.

“Yup,” Steve says. “What can I say? That's just the generous guy I am.”

Robin gives him another long look before finally sighing.

“Alright, fine,” she says. “Where are we doing this?”

Steve doesn't even bother trying to hide his grin at this point.

~*~

A few minutes later, Steve and Robin sit in Steve's car, Robin reading over the poem. Her expression very quickly becomes one of genuine concern, which makes Steve nervous.

"Okay, seriously, I'm starting to get worried about whoever's leaving you these letters,” Robin says. “Just listen to this.”

"I'm Sorry  
I miss the taste of your skin beneath my teeth  
The tension in your back before I would strike  
Sinking cruel fangs into your flesh  
The taste of blood, the smell of sweat  
I miss when I could drip my venom into your wounds  
But now I must swallow it like I wish I could swallow your kisses  
Would that I was not myself."

“Wow,” Steve says, “that shit is fucking heavy. It's, like, super sad.” He finds himself also thinking it's almost kinda sexy at the same time, though. He wonders if that's a thing.

“Yeah...” says Robin, only half paying attention, still studying the note. “Dude, I think that this person legit hates themselves. I think that he kinda wishes he was dead.”

“Why do you say that?” Steve asks, feeling another pang of worry for this faceless author.

“Well, for starters, this isn't the first time they've used snakes as a metaphor. You still have the other poems, right?”

“Yeah, yeah of course...” Steve isn't sure why he saved them, but he feels like he can admit to that with Robin.

“Lemme see them,” Robin commands. Steve awkwardly reaches into the backseat to grab his backpack, rifling through it till he finds the binder containing the bundle of poems he's saved. He pulls them out and hands them to Robin, who's looking at him with the look that says 'you're a dork.' Steve immediately misses that look once Robin's focus is on the bundle of poems.

“Okay, see?” she says, pointing to one of the poems. “The first time it was a snake biting him, then...” she sorts through the poems before scanning through one and pointing to it, “then he was surrounded by snakes, now he IS the snake.”

“Okay, so what does that mean?” Steve asks, feeling dumb.

“Well,” Robin says patiently, “snakes are often symbols of cruelty. So this guy used to be cruel to you, but now for whatever reason he can't or won't be cruel to you, but he still, I dunno, feels cruel. Maybe he feels bad about how he used to treat you but he doesn't know how to apologize and it's eating away at him.”

“So he used to be a dick to me, but now he has a crush on me? That doesn't make sense.”

“Really, Steve?” Robin counters. “You never pulled on a girl's pigtails?”

“Oh,” he says, “Good point.”

“So this guy used to be a dick to you, but now he isn't, although he probably still kinda wants to be,” concludes Robin. “Any ideas who that could be?”

“No...” says Steve, pondering. “I mean, there's plenty of guys who used to be dicks to me. I mean, pretty much all the basketball team. Except none of them every really stopped...”

Well, almost none of them, but that's just, what, wishful thinking?

"Robin,” he says suddenly, turning to her, “there's a party happening tonight, and I bet that whoever is writing these is gonna be there. Will you come with me?”

“What, why??” she says, looking almost offended by the offer.

“I wanna figure out who's sending these.”

"Why, so you can kick their ass?" Robin asks, suddenly defensive.

"What? No!" he says.

"You gonna get the little fag to stop sending you love letters?" she says meanly.

Steve clenches his jaw.

"No."

"You gonna expose him to the school?"

"No!" he shouts, startling Robin into silence. He didn't mean to say it that loudly. "No," he repeats, quieter. "I just wanna, I dunno... just say what I was gonna say when I thought he was a girl. That he doesn't have to feel alone, even if he's lonely."

Robin stares long and hard at Steve. Steve feels uncomfortably like he's being graded on some invisible test that he didn't know he was taking.

"Fine,” she says.

Well, whatever that test was looking for, it looks like Steve passed it.

~*~

The party could be going better.

It became pretty clear to Steve pretty quickly that Robin really never had been to a party like this in her life. Right off the bat she seemed tense and out of place, though she hides it well under her veneer of bored disinterest. The liberally spiked punch doesn't seem to be helping her loosen up either. He's been trying to get her to enjoy the party, cracking jokes as fast as he can, but she looks distracted. She keeps glancing around like she's looking for someone.

Steve tries introducing Robin to the other party goers. He avoids the backyard, of course, since it's been claimed by Billy and Tommy H and the other dipshits getting up to their bullshit dares, but there's plenty of folks inside and Steve is determined to get Robin to enjoy herself.

The problem is, none of the people he introduces Robin to have given her more than a passing glance, and that's starting to get Steve angry, cause Robin is awesome and anyone who doesn't know that is stupid and an asshole. 

“Oh, hi...”

“Uh huh...”

“Cool...”

Then comes Tammy Thompson, with her jealous little glare and her mean little smile and Steve almost loses his cool.

“Oh my God! Aren't you that girl in band?” The question is followed by a tittering little laugh that Steve knows is supposed to sound cute but just sounds annoying and he feels a flare of anger.

“Yep, she sure is!” says Steve with a smile that shows off a lot of teeth. “And she's pretty darn good! In fact, she and I were just about to go talk about it right now!” And he gently leads Robin away before he can tell Tammy what he really thinks about her and her stupid little dreams.

He finds an unoccupied couch and sits in the middle, Robin huddling up to the arm of the chair. It's obvious that she'd rather be anywhere but here. She's more than a little drunk and just got snubbed by half the school because of Steve.

“Hey, Robin,” Steve starts, unsure of what to say. “Don't... don't listen to that shit.”

No response. Not that he was expecting one.

“Look, what Tammy said... she's just an idiot, okay?”

“Guess I'm two for two on that, huh?” Robin mumbles, almost to herself. Steve is confused.

“Two for two on what?” he asks.

“Liking idiots...” she mumbles.

And then it all clicks into place. Robin's disinterest in Steve and other guys. Robin's defensiveness of the idea of the author being a guy. Robin getting worked up over Tammy Thompson.

Fuck.

For a while, Steve doesn't know what to think. He just sits back in the couch, feeling stunned.

After a while, Steve's brain whirs back into gear with all of the lack of fanfare that accompanies a real epiphany.

Steve realizes that he hadn't really been seeing Robin, not for who she really is. He hadn't been seeing anyone for who they really are. He had seen Nancy as the cute, prissy girl-next-door that he'd marry someday, but that wasn't who Nancy was. She was stubborn and determined and completely unafraid of conflict and filled with a fire he had never imagined. He had seen Tommy as his friend for years, but he was just a hanger on, looking for someone strong to make himself feel better. He had thought whoever was writing these poems was a girl, because why would it be anything else? And he had thought Robin was just like any other girl, until he got to know her. Really know her.

He had been falling in love with people without knowing who they were. He had been falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person. He thinks of the person who's been writing him poems.

Who do they think he is?

But right now Robin is upset, and there's not a lot that Steve is good at, but there is one thing he can do really well. 

"Hey Robin, I'll be right back," he says, hoisting himself out of the couch. She barely even nods.

~*~

Robin sits on the couch and stews in self loathing. Look at her, the first party she goes to her whole time in high school and she ends up just sulking on a couch alone. Well, not technically alone. Steve's spot next to her has long since been stolen by some dumbass from the football team who keeps trying to catch her eye. She just ignores him. So yeah, not physically alone, but definitely alone in a crowd.

Tammy Thompson.

Tammy Thompson. There she is, just chatting with her friends, like she hadn't just crushed Robin's heart to fucking dust a couple minutes ago. She's not looking over here as much any more, now that she knows that Steve left. Robin is partly relieved by that, but another part of her keeps wanting Tammy to look over here again and realize how much she hurt Robin and come over here and apologize and take her upstairs and-

God, she's so fucking pathetic.

She's also disappointed by the fact that Steve has probably ditched her. Honestly, she doesn't blame him. She's been a real fucking downer the whole evening. Still, serves her right for giving him a second chance.

"I come home in the morning light  
My mother says, 'When you gonna live your life right?'  
Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones  
And girls, they wanna have fun!  
Oh girls just want to have fun!"

Robin scrunches up her face. She knows that song. She loves that song, even though she'd never admit to it. She's listened to it a million times on the radio, and then a million more times on cassette. But that's not the voice of Cyndi Lauper, Robin's secret celebrity crush. That's a guy's voice?

"The phone rings in the middle of the night  
My father yells, 'What you gonna do with your life?'  
Oh daddy dear, you know you're still number one  
But girls, they wanna have fun!  
Oh girls just want to have!"

Robin turns unfocused eyes toward the door to the dining room, and it takes her a second to process what she's seeing:

Steve Harrington, in all his dopey glory, guitar in hand, looking right at her with a huge grin, playing her favorite song.

"That's all they really waaaaant!"

He holds the want just like Cyndi Lauper does, and it should sound ridiculous, but he's just so earnest about it that it just sounds so, well, fun!

"Some fuuuuuun!"

He's grinning ear to ear, and Robin realizes that a few folks are starting to sing along with him.

"When the working day is done!  
Oh girls, they wanna have fun!  
Oh girls just wanna have fun!"

A few of the party goers join Steve in singing "they just wanna! they just wanna!" and Robin realizes that she's smiling when Steve dances over to her, guitar swaying jauntily.

"Some boys take a beautiful girl  
And hide her away from the rest of the world"

And now he's looking straight at Robin with this weirdly sincere look on his face, and Robin doesn't really know what to make of that, but he's still smiling and singing and dancing.

"I want to be the one to walk in the sun!"

And Robin realizes that this is all for her benefit. Steve is willing to make a fool of himself in front of all these people because he thinks it'll make her feel better. Because he's just like that. Before she can second guess herself, she's standing up and singing along right in Steve's face, and he looks happier than she's ever seen him.

"Oh girls, they wanna have fun!  
Oh girls just wanna have-”

Steve is grinning ear to ear as he belts out the lyrics to the room at large, eliciting laughs and cheers as half the room sings along with him. Robin sees Tammy Thompson staring at her with a face like she sucked on a lemon, and Robin feels a surge of elation. She sees Tommy H looking at them like he's trying to think of something mean to say and Amy Ringston looking like she's trying hard not to smile and Billy Hargrove looking furious and she laughs and keeps singing, because of all the popular kids that this song could be for, she's the one it's being sung for, and that feels pretty damn good.

“That's all they really waaaaaant!  
Some fuuuuun!  
When the working day is done  
Oh girls, they wanna have fun!  
Oh girls just wanna have fun!”

And they kept singing for what felt like forever, and Robin had the most fun she'd ever had in a crowd, and she didn't feel alone.

~*~

The drive back to Robin's house is passed in comfortable silence. Steve's first song had inspired the party goers to request a number of other ridiculous songs out of him, leading go a good half hour of Steve singing such off the wall songs as Tina Turner's “What's Love Got to Do With It,” Men at Work's “Down Under,” and Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Steve is particularly proud of his performance of Dolly Parton's “Jolene,” cause his overly affected southern accent elicited more than a few laughs from the other party goers.

And throughout it all, Robin remained comfortably on the sidelines, looking so much more comfortable with herself than she had just an hour before. Steve feels like he did something right by someone, and that feels good.

Eventually they pull up to Robin's house.

“Here, let me walk you to your door,” he says.

“Okay,” says Robin without much thought, a small smile still lingering on her face. Steve gets out of the car and walks around to open Robin's door and help her out.

“Look at you, Lancelot,” she teases. “So chivalrous.”

“Hey, my mom would never forgive me if she knew I didn't do the gentlemanly thing,” Steve quips right back, relieved to be back in Robin's good graces.

“Hey, Robin,” Steve says as they begin to walk toward her front door.

“Yeah?”

“You're a really good friend.”

“Damn right I am, dingus” she says, and Steve feels another surge of joy at the insult. He's back on a 'dingus' basis and he couldn't be happier.

"I mean it," he insists. "I said some shitty stuff to you and gave you a shitty apology and you still went to the party with me and that's really cool of you."

"Yeah, well maybe I'm just dumb," Robin says as she steps up to her front door.

"No, no that's not it," Steve shakes his head with certainty. "You're super smart."

There's an awkward moment of silence. Steve is trying to figure out what to say. He doesn't know how you can just say what he's trying to say. But Robin pulls out her keys and it's now or never, so he says the first thing he can think of.

“Hey Robin, do you remember what I told you last month?” 

Robin pauses with her key halfway to the lock.

“No?” she says, looking confused.

“I said that you could do better than Tammy Thompson,” he says.

“Oh,” she responds, looking wary.

“Yeah, well I meant it,” he marshals on. “You're smart and funny and pretty and you can definitely find someone who matches you in all that. And when you find that someone..."

He takes a deep breath. Might as well just say it.

“Well, when you find that someone, I know she'll be just as smart and funny and cool as you are.”

Robin stares up at Steve, wide eyed. 

She stares at him for a long time.

She stares at him for so long that Steve wonders if he was wrong after all.

Suddenly, she wraps her arms around Steve and buries her face him his shoulder.

Steve is really proud of how he doesn't miss a beat hugging her back.

She shakes a little bit with a few sobs.

"Thanks," she says, her voice muffled.

"Of course," Steve responds with a smile.

“Hey Steve,” she says into his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“You're a really good friend.”

“Damn right I am,” he says, causing her to chuckle wetly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! That last scene was worth all the struggle I went through getting to that part! Only two more chapters to go! I think you guys are going to be pleasantly surprised with the direction that this story is going to wind up taking!
> 
> Also, originally this chapter was gonna be significantly different. Originally, Steve sang “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” to test Robin's theory that the author was a guy, leading to the line "Cindi Lauper is not a litmus test for girls!" I'm sad that I had to cut the line but this is a much stronger way for the chapter to have gone ultimately


	7. A Snake in the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy is not enjoying the last party of the year nearly as much as he'd like.

_A Snake in the Sun  
I am a greedy, poisonous thing  
A venoumous serpent worshipping a sun I don't deserve  
I bask in your voice like a worm upon stone  
Soaking up joy that I have no right to  
Dreaming of lips and teeth and tongue incompatible with mine  
For a serpent cannot kiss without poison  
And I would only swallow your voice whole  
But perhaps I can be desiccated upon the stone  
And do no more harm_

Billy can still remember every single line of that poem, even though it had been a couple weeks since he had left it in Steve's locker. He can remember every single line of every single poem he left in that beautiful bastard's locker. How could he not?

So now he chats idly with Tommy and some of the other guys in the backyard of this fucking party, the words of his last poem roiling in his head while he watches Steve start tuning his guitar out of the corner of his eye. Because yeah, apparently Tina asked him to play at her party. Because yeah, apparently right at the end of his high school career Steve just fucking fell into popularity again. Because yeah, Billy has to work and scrape and fight to stay at the top of the social hierarchy, but Steve can just blunder into and out of it whenever he wants.

Billy's so relieved that he doesn't have to look at Steve ever again after this school year is over. Maybe that will help him get over his pathetic crush.

He's also kind of devastated, too.

And now that bastard is here and he's sitting on a stool on the deck overlooking the backyard and he's tuning his guitar and he's talking to his scrawny little girlfriend and Billy tries to look over there as little as possible. He tells himself it's just because of how he doesn't want to attract suspicion, and that's partially true, but the real reason is because of how painful it is to see Steve smiling so openly at someone.

The fucking bitch is just hovering a few feet away from Steve, chatting with him in an easy way that makes Steve look so much more relaxed than he's ever seen him at one of these parties. Billy can't stand the fucking sight of her, the way she rolls her eyes at one of Steve's jokes, the way she makes his face light up whenever she gives him a laugh. That should be Billy making Steve smile from just existing.

But even if Steve was into dudes, he kinda screwed the pooch on that one, didn't he?

So yeah, this is what he gets for being the psychopath that everyone knows him to be. He gets to watch while some skinny little band geek (because of course she's just some nerd) makes the guy that Billy has been pining after for over half a year look the happiest he's ever been.

So all that's left for Billy is to turn the words of his masochistic little love poems over and over in his head and want want want.

And then Steve speaks up.

“Hey guys!” he says to the backyard with an easy grin as his girlfriend wanders off to the corner of the deck to lounge in an empty chair. “Glad to see we all survived the year, huh?”

That gets some laughs out of the party goers. Billy feels his face twist into a scowl. Dammit, he's just so fucking _nice_.

“It's been a rough time, huh?” he continues. “I know finals were an absolute bitch for me, how about you guys?”

That gets quite a few low key cheers out of the party.

“Well it's almost over, so I figured I might as well do some celebrating. So I got my gi-tar,” Billy scowls even harder at the lame joke, “and I got my fingers and I figured I'd play some tunes.”

The crowd gives a modest cheer at that and Steve starts playing.

~*~

If there is a God, and sometimes Billy prays there isn't, he must hate Billy, because this is just unfair.

It's like Steve knew all of Billy's favorite songs.

It's bad enough that Steve starts his set out on “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” That is basically Billy's song, but Steve just picked it up and wrapped it up in his softness and made it his own. He took a song that's all about the defiance that Billy has adopted as his and made it about a defiance that is so clearly Steve. It's not arrogant and crass, even when Steve is singing the innuendos. It's joyful and celebratory, almost humble? It's like Steve is saying “Here I am and I love life.”

But then Steve moves on to “Bang Your Head” and turns that aggressive song into some kind of declaration against loneliness. Just a few well placed pauses in his guitar playing and Steve Harrington manages to give a song a brand new fucking dimension and Billy is fucking riveted. Tommy tries to get him to chat some more. Billy brushes him off and wanders over to some girl so he could half-heartedly flirt with her for cover.

He plays “Live Wire” and at first Billy doesn't even recognize it, because Steve plays it so different than Mötley Crüe. He played it slow and soft, not hard and fast, and that made it lonely and defiant in a quiet sort of way, but at the same time it's also kind of funny. Like Steve knows how absurd what he's doing is, so he's going all the way with it. It almost pisses Billy off that no one else here notices how genuinely funny it is. Fucking uncultured shitheads. They're barely even paying him much attention. Most just linger around, chatting with each other. Billy wants to yell at them to shut the fuck up and listen. And Steve just sits there eating up whatever attention is thrown his way. It would be pathetic if it didn't make Billy angry in a way he couldn't quite name.

Now at least they're starting to perk up, because Steve is playing fucking "Dream On", and the people who are familiar with Aerosmith must have caught on that Steve is fast approaching the make or break point of any “Dream On” cover: the scream. Billy is no stranger to this. He's sung along to “Dream On” blasting in his Camaro more times than he can count, and whenever he gets to the scream he always has to chicken out because he just can't hit that note. He's seen other dudes try to hit that note and embarrass themselves plenty of times.

He can feel himself bracing for Steve to crash and burn.

But then he nails it!

He fucking NAILS it!!

The entire backyard goes fucking crazy as Steve belts out “ _Dream on! Dream on! Dream on!_ ” in the best Steve Tyler scream he's ever heard and Billy has completely given up all pretense of flirting with this girl because _since when could Steve do that???_ How does this preppy little jock have the pipes to be able to shriek that fucking line and then finish the final verse of the song like it's nothing???

“We're gonna have to start calling you King Steven Tyler from now on!” shouts Tommy as Steve finishes, and Billy kinda wants to punch Tommy except there was barely any actual derision in his tone. Billy lets it slide.

“Alright guys, I gotta wrap it up for the night,” a chorus of good natured boo's follows that. “I know, I know, but I gotta get a least a LITTLE drunk, right?” Laughter follows that. Damn, Billy thinks sullenly, this guy is good a working a crowd when he wants to. It makes sense that he managed to stay King Steve for so long. He's just so likeable without even trying.

“Well,” he continues with a charming grin, “I wanna dedicate this last song to someone very special to me. We haven't always seen eye to eye, but they're not as bad as they seem and this was the best way that I could think of.”

Billy feels his pulse jackrabbiting in his chest. Is Steve talking about him?? No, of course he isn't. That's stupid. Steve hates Billy. This is just Billy being pathetic and wanting what he can't have.

Still, he can't stop listening as Steve begins to sing.

“Like a bird,” Steve starts mournfully, “on the wire,  
Like a drunk in a midnight choir  
I have tried in my way to be free”

It's another sad song. Jesus, Steve looks so beautiful when he's pouring his soul out into a song. His face screws up all delicately, and he gets this wistful expression, and it's like it's just him and his guitar. 

"Like a worm on a hook  
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book  
I have saved all my ribbons for thee"

This is just like the first time, except then Steve was pouring out his soul for Nancy fucking Wheeler. Now Billy feels like Steve is pouring his soul out for him. Sure, he probably thinks that the poems were from some chick, and sure he's dating that Robin bitch, but still. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend like the words are just for him.

“If I, if I have been unkind  
I hope that you can just let it go by  
If I, if I have been untrue  
I hope you know it was never to you"

Jesus Christ, and doesn't that line just hit fucking home? Because yeah, Billy knows that he doesn't deserve forgiveness, but that doesn't stop him from wanting it. God, does he fucking want it so desperately.

"For like a baby, stillborn  
Like a beast with his horn  
I have torn everyone who reached out for me"

Billy feels like he is going to cry. What the Hell, Harrington?? Why the Hell are you singing this??? It's like he looked right into the pathetic, mewling core of Billy's soul and understood it all. Cause yeah, that's Billy. Abandoned and angry and pushing love away.

"But I swear by this song  
And by all that I have done wrong  
I will make it all up to thee”

This song has so much of Billy in it that it hurts. This song feels like it's about him. Itinerant, lonely, yearning for freedom he can't achieve and forgiveness he doesn't deserve.

"I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch  
He said to me, "you must not ask for so much"  
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door  
She cried to me, "hey, why not ask for more?"

Billy is trying to maintain control of himself, but it's a hard thing to do when he can hear so much of himself in Steve's voice. 

"Oh, like a bird on the wire  
Like a drunk in a midnight choir  
I have tried in my way to be free"

Finally, the song is over and Billy feels like he can breathe again.

The applause that Steve gets is minimal at best. He should have ended on another rock song if he had wanted praise. None of these troglodytes know how to appreciate good music. Billy feels unreasonably angry at everyone else for not recognizing how amazing that song was. But Steve, beautiful Steve, looks pleased with his song. He smiles softly, fondly, at his girlfriend as she walks over to him. Billy turns away before he has to see them kiss, because he knows that if he sees that he's going to break down in front of everyone, and that's just not going to happen.

So he storms into the house, stomping across the deck, hoping that Steve watches him as he goes, in search of a pen and paper.

He's storming through the house, looking everywhere for what he needs. Everyone gets out of his way, flinching back from him. Good. He still has his intimidation under control. He hasn't completely wimped out. Still, he feels something bubbling up in his chest, twisting and angry and wanting and itching for a fight, but his head is buzzing with unspoken words even louder and he needs to get them out. 

Finally he manages to find a notepad and a pen in a drawer. He finds a room with a desk and he bends over the paper and tries to sort his feelings out into words.

But why? Why bother? It's not like it's going to do any good. It's not like Steve would ever give him a second glance. He's just throwing his feelings at that beautiful bastard from the safety of an anonymous writer. Like a fucking coward. Maybe he's just hoping that Steve will feel bad for him. Fucking pathetic. That's all he can get. Anonymous pity from some dude. 

Billy is staring at the paper so hard that he doesn't hear the door open behind him.

“Wow,” says a voice, causing Billy to startle, “you write them right after you hear me sing? That's amazing.”

Billy whips around, and there are the last two people Billy wants to see right now: Steve and his fucking girlfriend.

"The fuck are you assholes doing here?" Billy snarls. He may be pathetic, but that doesn't mean that anyone has to fucking know it.

"Was looking for you, dude," he says, unperturbed by Billy's anger.

“What, both of you?” Billy growls.

"I'm just here for insurance," adds the bitch, giving Billy a calculating look.

"What, you need your girlfriend to protect you, Steve?" says Billy, deflecting in an effort to gain control of this conversation again.

"She's not my girlfriend," Steve responds easily as the girl snorts a laugh.

"Yeah, definitely not," she says with the kind of wry smile that means Billy is missing a punchline. He fucking hates that. He feels even more off balance than before. Dammit, how did Steve manage to do that?

"So what the fuck do you want?" he barks out. The girl flinches a bit, but Steve stays standing straight. God, that bastard never did back down from a fight, did he?

"We just wanna talk," he says gently

"Well there's nothing I wanna say to you, now get the fuck out of my way," growls Billy as he pushes away from the table and stalks toward the door.

"Your poems are really beautiful," says Steve with an earnestness that stops Billy in his tracks and makes his stomach drop through the floor. “I didn't really understand most of them, but they were really pretty. Sad, but pretty.”

“The imagery in them was pretty damn good,” adds the girl. Billy's eyes immediately lock onto her. What, did Steve show this bitch the poems?? Was he bragging?? Does everyone in school know about these poems??? The girl, as if she can read Billy's mind, smirks wryly and continues, “Don't be mad at Steve. This dingus can't read cursive and wouldn't know a metaphor if it bit him in the ass. He needed the help.”

“Yeah,” agrees Steve with a self-depricating smile, “you were kinda casting your pearls before swine there.” Billy blinks at the reference to his poem. “I didn't show anyone else, though. I knew you wouldn't have wanted me to after that first one.”

“Fuck you, you don't know me,” Billy says, trying to pretend that he isn't about to shake out of his skin, “And I don't write poems.”

“You know, a month ago I woulda believed you,” the girl pipes up again, maintaining a careful distance. “But I had my eye on you all night and you haven't been able to keep your eyes off Steve.”

Shit, Billy feels dizzy, has he been that careless?

“Don't worry dude,” the girl continues, “you haven't been too obvious, I just know what it looks like.” Billy is starting to feel more than a little angry about the fact that these two nobodies can so easily throw him for a loop.

“Believe it or not,” the girl continues, “it was Steve who realized that you were the one sending the poems,” says Robin.

“Yeah!” says Steve, looking proud in a way that Billy realizes he doesn't see very often and would like to see more of. “After your last poem, Robin and I realized that whoever was writing the poems probably.... well, probably felt the same way about themself as I used to feel about myself when I was still popular. And then I remembered your poem where you refer to Osmium-”

“Ozymadius, dork,” corrects Robin with a grin.

“Yeah, him” Steve says without missing a beat. “I remembered how the poem had said that you came for my throne. And I remember what it's like being friends with people that don't care about you. So, you know...”

“You don't know me, Harrington,” Billy snarls, though he can't muster the ferocity her normally could.

“Yeah, you mentioned,” Steve says with an exasperated smile. “But I know that you wrote those poems for me, and I know that that took a lot of courage, so I wanted to tell you.”

Courage? Yeah fucking right. Real fucking brave, shoving some scribbled words in a locker when no one is around, terrified that anyone would see. Billy hates people lying to him.

“And they've been getting sadder and sadder recently,” Steve continues. “And so I wanted to, you know, tell you that it's cool.”

Billy feels like he's not inside his body. Like his mind is pouring out his eyes and the back of his skull. Like he's behind himself, watching from a distance as he doesn't react. He needs to fucking say something!

"No one's gonna fucking believe you," Billy finally bites out. Anger is good. It can keep him grounded. In the end, it's all he has left. "You really think people are gonna believe that I wrote you fucking poetry??"

"We're not telling anyone," the girl says. "Us queers need to stick together."

And that's... well....

"Billy," Steve continues. "I'm not going to do that. I... dude," he looks away, fidgets nervously. "I know what it's like. Not being able to be yourself, not feeling like you're worth people's time. It... it sucks dude. It sucks so fucking much. Feeling alone in a crowd."

"Yeah?" Billy tries to sneer. He doesn't do a very good job. All this faggoty poetry really has made him soft, hasn't it? "What would you know about it?"

"I know that I didn't have a real friend when I was King Steve," Steve looks right back at Billy again, and Billy is never fully prepared for the determination that can bloom in those eyes when Steve needs it. 

Billy isn't sure what to say. He isn't sure what to do at all. Anger doesn't feel right, but neither does happiness. Relief definitely isn't right for the moment. There's nothing that he knows to do. So he waits.

He's always waiting.

Finally, Steve breaks the silence.

"How many conversations have we had?"

"What?"

"How many conversations have we had?" he repeats patiently. "How much have we actually talked? Not butted heads or postured or shit?"

"Fuck, I dunno..." that's a lie. He does know. And so does Steve.

"None," Steve says bluntly. "We've had none. We've never actually talked. "

"So what's your point?"

"My point is that you're not in love with me," he says simply, as if that's his place to say.

"Who the fuck said I was?" he blusters.

"I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb," Steve says with a grin. "Look man, you're not in love with me, you're in love with the idea of me."

"You don't fucking know me Harrington."

"Dude, how many times are you gonna say that tonight?" Steve has the audacity to laugh. "And yeah, that's the point! I _don't_ know you! Listen, man, I've been where you are now. Maybe not in exactly the same spot, but I've fallen in love with who I thought someone was because I wanted them to love me back, too."

"It sucks, man," says the girl, finally piping up again. "It sucks wanting to be wanted and not being wanted back. It feels like the whole world is conspiring to make you alone. Like you're never going to be good enough for anyone.”

Fuck.

Billy is at a total loss for words. Steve and this girl, in the span of just a few minutes, have managed to look deeper into him than anyone has bothered to look since he was a kid. With just a few words, they've flipped his perspective on its fucking head. It's a lot to take in. Billy wants to say something, but he doesn't want to mess this up.

"You wanna get a beer?" Steve finally asks.

"What?"

"Come on,” he says with an easy grin, patting Billy on the shoulder, “Robin came up with a really funny game that we do at lunch, and I bet that it would make a good drinking game."

"Oh yeah!" Robin says eagerly. "That's a good idea! What we do is we pick someone out and we tell a joke about them and whoever makes the best joke wins. We could make it so that whoever loses has to take a drink!”

“Oh!” Steve adds, grin getting bigger with excitement, “We can take turns! One person can be the judge, and whoever loses then becomes the judge and the winner and the previous judge have to tell the next jokes!”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Billy says, still completely out of his depth and not enjoying it one bit. "What the fuck are you two talking about?"

Steve smiles kindly at him, and it feels like forgiveness.

"Come hang out with me and Robin, Billy,” he says earnestly. “Let's be friends.”

~*~

On Monday, Billy leaves one last note for Steve.

After the time he had spent with Steve and Robin, listening to their easy banter as they teased each other and made snide comments about the other party goers, Billy feels a little calmer inside. A little hopeful. He very quickly found himself loosening up listening to some of the blistering jokes that Robin and Steve can tell, and pretty soon Billy tossed in a couple of his own and they were telling jokes and trading drinks back and forth. Steve and Robin made surprisingly good company, and they welcomed Billy in happily. I guess it helps that they all know secrets about each other. Still, it was a relief

Tommy had clearly not known what to make of it. Billy had enjoyed the look on his face. Tommy always was a bit annoying.

The next day, Billy had not known what to do with himself. Normally after a party, Billy's head would be filled with all the words that Steve's songs dredged up from the dark depths of his soul. But the time he had spent with Steve and Robin had chased all the raw sentences and anger out of his mind and now his head felt... not empty, but not filled with words buzzing to come out. It felt peaceful.

Billy wasn't sure what to make of that.

At this point, though, there were really only two words that Billy needed to say. So he wrote them down carefully on a piece of clean paper, gently folded it into an envelope, and placed it in Steve's mailbox.

It's not the poetry that Billy normally gives to Steve, but it's just heartfelt. 

“Thank You”

Then he, Steve, and Robin go out for burgers before watching Rambo II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! One more chapter to go!

**Author's Note:**

> There's more chapters on the way. This story is turning out larger than I expected.


End file.
